Brand experience on Facebook is back

A few updates ago (I'm thinking circa early 2009), Facebook migrated all fan or brand pages to look pretty much like profile pages. All the crafty designing and widget wondery that leader brands had invested in was lost, reduced to the lowest-common-denominator rubble of tabs and walls.

Of course the promise was there - the updates also allowed full-width application tabs and boxes of all kinds. But, no one was rushing in to try to figure out how to own the new landscape. Until a last Fall. A few retail brands, like JCrew and Gap, created Facebook pages that looked much more like the quality of their brands, even personalizing the experience to deliver different content for fans and visitors. They stood out because of it. Racking up thousands of fans and earning real engagement.

    

Now, enter Resource Interactive - the top 50 interactive shop that up until now hadn't leaned on its Facebook page for marketing or reputation building. This week they launched a fabulous new presence that breaks out of the tabs and looks like them (not the social network).

 

 

A friendly neighborhood programmer said, "no one knew how to do that two years ago." The truth is, I don't think anyone knew how to do that two months ago. But, I'm thrilled that experience is coming back to Facebook. I've had enough basic blue. Cheers, RI!

Comments

[Angelique]

Loved this post -- it really shows how the possibilities AND limitations of Facebook as a social medium for businesses.

Angelique
www.yourwrittenbook.com

[Hegel Eisenhower]

Hey I love your Blog
http://marketingalternativobtl.com/

Hegel Eisenhower

[Cory O'Brien]

Just when brands are finally starting to experiment with Page design again, Facebook decides to change their Page layout, which means everyone who took a risk and designed a custom page, like Resource Interactive, will have to go back and change everything to fit it in the new, smaller tab width.

As someone who manages a few Facebook pages, I will say that it's annoying how limited the options that Facebook gives you are for designing a good looking page, and how frequently Facebook changes those options without even really documenting what was possible in the first place.

[Alaina Sheer (Cement Marketing)]

Very nice Resource fan page. But when you enter as a non-fan, as I just did, I am in the app but then can't get back to the wall.

So I would scale back the fancy a bit and make sure Facebook users can get back to familiar territory easily.